Photo slide show

http://www.photoshow.com/watch/Rt4Qr5Yc

Christmas photo...

A quick preview of the picture I think we will be using for Christmas Cards this year:

In other news,
Rebecca has 2 bottom teeth and 1 top tooth.
Charlotte has 1 of each.
Trevor still scores a zero on the tooth count.

Rebecca now outweighs the other 2 by about 2 pounds and is noticably taller. She has a new game where she will grab your finger and lead you around the house.

Charlotte is turning into our explorer. She is the first one out if we open up the front door and she's usually the fastest down the sidewalk.

Trevor is now bringing us things. It's either books he wants us to read, or just a toy he wants you to play with. He is also trading things with us.

Quick Updates

So I'm behind on posting stuff. I have pictures and videos that I still haven't looked at in the last year. I'm currently working on sorting them out so you may see more in the future as I get days off for the holidays.

Short updates:
All three are walking fairly confidently.
Rebecca has 2 bottom teeth, Charlotte is just getting her first and none for Trevor so far.
Trevor hasn't shown any problems since his surgery. We have one more follow up on that.
Their first birthday was fun. The house was crowded but in a nice way. Dorothy made all the cakes for the triplets and the guests.
We have a Dr. visit next week and Iim expecting Rebecca to be at the 20 lb mark.

Princess Pictures

Cindy Lou Who

First Birthday

Photo slide show

Terry sent yet another photoshow... Enjoy.
http://www.photoshow.com/watch/DQ3yz7mW

Photo slide show

Terry has finished a photoshow of the triplets first birthday party:
http://www.photoshow.com/watch/vc5VT6rz

Photo slide show

Terry has sent another photoshow. This one is from their visit the weekend of October 25th.
http://www.photoshow.com/watch/Qs8xv6Xj

Notes on Halloween

Since the kids were in a good mood, we decided to let them wander around the living room while we answered the door for Trick or Treaters.
This meant that the dogs (Akitia's) were blocked into the kitchen by a baby gate so they couldn't run out the door or trample the triplets.
Now, as expected, most of the kids just wanted their candy and moved on. But a few looked inside.
The triplets were curious and headed for the door everytime I opened it, but the only comments we ever got were how big the dogs were.

Birthday Updates

The kids birthday was yesterday and we had a nice party. Pictures and videos will be up soon.

Till then, you will just have to live with a video of the cake Dorothy made me for my birthday last year while 33 weeks pregnant with the triplets:

Trevor Surgery Updates

So I just spent the morning with Trevor while he was getting his surgery (previously mentioned here). The doctor called it a hernia repair, as opposed to the Hydrocele, but whatever, it's done now. He did fine, was a bit cranky when he first got out of surgery, but I rocked him to sleep in my arms so he could sleep off some of the anesthesia and he was happier by the time Dorothy got to the hospital to pick him up.

Now we just have to watch him the rest of the day as he will have jello for legs and will probably be achy.

Pure Accident

A picture is worth a 1000 words, but this should be shorter than that.

Foe a while now, the kids have been able to get themselves in and out of their Bumbo chair... This is relavant, so keep reading.

About a week ago, my mom and Dorothy were talking about potty training the kids and it was mentioned that we would have to take away the Bumbo chair when we did because the kids would probably confuse it with their potty seats.

Fast forward to this evening... Charlotte has been a bit rashy lately and we decided to give her some "free" time to help air things out after dinner. She spent probably an hour playing and crawling around without incident. Then she sat in the Bumbo for a bit and when decided it was time to get them ready for bed, she was first because of her "free" state.

The above picture is what we found in the chair. An hour of playing and nothing on the carpet or blankets or anything.

Just in the chair.

Our first sucessful potty training.

Jumping Charlotte

Charlotte likes to jump when we try to help her stand so we got her a Jumperoo to play with.

Photoshow

Here is a photo show from Terry from last weekend when Dorothy was out of town and her mom was helping me with the triplets.

Rebecca Takes a few Steps

Rebecca took a few real steps today and we managed to get it on video. Trevor is not far behind, but I don't think Charlotte is quite confident enough yet.

General Updates

So I've been busy and have gotten behind on my updates so here goes:

Trevor has something called Hydrocele and is going to need surgery. His consultation is on the 9th but I will miss it because I'll be out of town for training. When I scheduled the training today, I didn't have many choices partly because Dorothy will be out of town this weekend and 1 weekend in October. I could have pushed it farther out, but I think I'd rather miss the consult than the actual surgery.

My brother was in town for a few days and got the meet the kids. Pictures are here. The triplets took to him fairly well and they seemed to play with him just fine. James brought some stuffed animals so the kids zoo is growing.

The kids are getting braver about standing. We have had several moments where one of they will stand on their own for a few seconds before they sit down or grab something.

This last Sunday, since Dorothy was going to be gone for 3 days, I thought it would be nice to take everyone on a family outing up Mt. Lemmon. It wasn't too bad, but I think we will wait till the kids can do some walking and exploring before we try it again. 6 hours in a car seat just doesn't make for happy babies.

Photo slide show

Another Photoshow from Terry. This was Labor day.

Nurse Visit Today

The developmental nurse was here today so we have new weights:

Rebecca = 16lb 6.5oz
Charlotte = 14lb 12.5oz
Trevor = 14lb 3.5oz

All three are on track as far as their developmental milestones.

I have also uploaded a copy of all the pictures Terry has taken of them so far. You can find them HERE.

Tub Time

We have started giving the kids a bath every night in the big tub. They really seem to enjoy it.

Pearly Whites

Well, Rebecca is the winner in the first tooth race. You can just feel her first tooth popping through the gums. And a close inspection with a flashlight reveals the 2 teeth right next to it just under the skin. Probably won't be able to get a picture of it for a few days.

Photo slide show

New Photoshow from Terry:
http://www.photoshow.com/watch/Te7AM9dG

More Pictures and Videos

Just a few recent pictures and videos:

Their first bath in the big tub:
http://picasaweb.google.com/turner85743/BathTime

Playtime on mom's exercise equipment:

9 Month update

The triplets are 9 months old! I'm not really sure where the time went. It feels like forever and just yesterday all at the same time.

They had their doctor visit yesterday, so we have some new weights:
Trevor = 13lb
Charlotte = 14lv 1oz
Rebecca = 15lb 3oz

The kids are showing a good bit of their personalities as well:

Charlotte is calm and careful. She is very talkative and seems to spend more time trying to figure things out. Dorothy put out this "lazy-susan" sort of thing she uses in her exercise teaching. Trevor and Rebecca just tried to crawl all over it while Charlotte spent a good amount of time laying next to it, spinning it and just looking at it before she tried to crawl on it.

Rebecca is our strong one. She is the biggest and tallest. She has the best hang of standing and cruising, even trying to stand without holding on to anything sometimes. She is also the fastest crawler at this point. I think she is also the shyest. She is the first to cry if a stranger is trying to play with her, and the first to complain if Someone she knows tries to leave the room.

Trevor is our daredevil. I think he is making of for his size as he tries to keep up with Rebecca in crawling and cruising. He is a very good climber and I expect he will be the first (but not soon) to escape his crib. He has loads of energy and doesn't seem to slow down till he is asleep.

All 3 are standing while holding on to things, cruising, walking holding onto our hands and sitting very well. They all like story time and anything that's on our plates. Dorothy is doing a great job in making all their spoon foods. They are getting a huge assortment of food.

New photo slideshow

I'm behind on blog posts, but I've been really busy at work lately. Here's a new slideshow from Terry to fill the gap.

http://www.photoshow.com/watch/jI8wv2mQ

Repair of Baby Toys, Recycling and Economies of Scale

This Easter, Dorothy and I were taking a walk with the kids and we stopped in the local Walgreen's to get something, I forget what. While wandering around I stumbled onto these rather cute little toys. They float and when you touch the contacts on the bottom, the quack or ribbit a few tunes. I showed on to the kids in the stroller and their little faces lit up so we got the frog and the duck.
The kids, and Charlotte especially, really really liked the toys. Charlotte was the first to figure out how to light up the frog. (She really likes her frogys). Of course, this meant that the frog was the first to die. It only took a few weeks to do that, so Dorothy went back to the store to see if they still had some. She bought their last frog.
I did a search on the net and found the place that makes these, but they only sell them in large bins to stores and I wasn't ready to by 50 frogs. So, on a hunch, I started poking at the first dead frog and figured out how to take him apart. Once that was done, it was easy to see that replacing the batteries would be fairly simple.
So I did. What follows is a brief "how to" on fixing these little toys.

A view of the underside showing the 2 contacts. These can be set off by fingers, water or as Charlotte discovered, a babies tounge.

Removal of the innards. The 2 wires go the the speaker located on froggies butt.

Frog and Duck side by side. I wanted to make sure they were built the same.

Note that the pcb says "Duck-1" on the duck. It's interesting to note that the from board says "Duck-1" as well... The only physical difference is that the duck has 2 led's and the frog has 1.

The whole thing is held together by the 2 contact pins. The go up through the plastic and through the board where they are soldered on. Remove the solder and the pin comes out. Do both pins and you have access to the batteries.

A view of the 3 button batteries in the duck.

Remove the old batteries.

And do the same for Mr Froggy.

It took a bit of doing to find the replacement batteries, but here they are.

Put in the new batteries, solder in the pins and frog and duck are alive once more. I super glued the plug back in to make sure it had a good seal and ta da... live toys and 3 very happy kids.

Now this little project is a great example of recycling. I saved some bits of plastic from the landfill and made my kids happy in the process.
The down side is that these things cost us $1.50 each at the store. The batteries cost me $2.00 each (or $6.00 per toy). The people who make these things make millions of them and must be getting batteries for $0.10 or so. At the rate the new batteries cost me, it would be cheaper to just buy a big bin of the toys all at once and dole them out as needed. What a choice.

Post Partum Depression, Karma and the Balance of Luck

My favorite definition of stress can be found here (it's the #2 version)

Did you read that? good, now this sentence will make more sense: For me, at the moment, that person has a name. I won't share that name at the moment as I'm sure some how it would get me in trouble. He's the guy that bought my house when the babies were born.

I was trying to fix up the house for us as it would have been a really nice place for my family for the next 4-5years. We would have had a big back yard for growing things, letting the dogs play and letting the kids play. We would have had a nice big room for Dorothy's studio so she could work with clients separated from the pets and allergies. We would have been in the middle of town so I could have avoided the hell that I-10 has become. Heck, we would have had a lower mortgage payment.

But for various reasons, I ran out of time and money to get the job done and I had to dump the house during a time of bad house prices and low turnover. Getting the house sold and realizing just how much I was losing in the process was one of the many contributing factors to my Postpartum Depression. Yes, men can get it to and there were a few things that added to my problems.

This leads me to my theory on the Balance of Luck. The basic idea is that luck will balance itself out. A run of bad luck will be followed up by good luck and so forth. Because of this, I try not to depend on luck. I just don't want to deal with the bad luck that follows the good. Karma is more my style. As I see it, Karma is the idea that what you do in life comes back to you. I try to be a good person, helping out friends as best I can, doing what I say and just being polite whenever possible.

Luck however, has had it's own ideas. I've been really lucky in the last few years. Meeting Dorothy, getting married, having 3 beautiful and healthy kids. Dorothy delivered naturally, we had probably the only doctor in Tucson that was willing to try. I was able to take her home the next day after she spent about 30 hours in the hospital from start to finish. The kids, even though they spent some time in the NICU, never needed any real assistance. They just had to get bigger and learn how to eat. We got through the dreaded RSV season with noone getting seriously sick. I got a cold for a week and wore a mask around the house, and towards the end of the season, all 3 girls got a brief cold. And the kids are doing very well. If I account for their "adjusted" age, they are doing things that the books say the should be doing a month from now, or more. These are all things in the good luck category.

So I was expecting some bad luck. Unfortunately I forgot that luck can come in small doses or great big doses. When I sold the house, I knew I wasn't going to get much of anything for it as it still needed work. The unnamed guy I sold it to basically took over the payments and agreed to pay off 2 credit accounts I had built up in doing some of the repairs. This was all done in a nice legal manner and I still have the 2nd lien on the house that's due when he sells the house. Unfortunately, Mr. Unnamed Guy seems to have a problem with paying the bills on time. This weekend marks the 4th time that he has paid the mortgage late. Which means that this is the 4th time I spent the weekend fielding calls from the mortgage company about why the payment was late and what was I going to do about it.

Now for those of you who haven't dealt with depression before, here's my take on how it works, at least for me. Depression is caused by stress. A body can only deal with a certain amount of stress before something snaps. That breakdown is the start of the depression. For me it manifests itself as a lack of appetite, feeling worthless, feeling like I can't take care of my family like I should, lack of sleep, a lack of energy and I tend to feel sick to my stomach. As you work out of the depression, it's important to note that the break in your stress response is still there and will take quite a while to fix. So now, things that wouldn't normally have bothered me are capable of kicking off little cycles of depression and I have to fight really hard to keep my head above water.

So, Mr. Unnamed Guy. Even though you have caused me an inordinate amount of grief since you bought my house. Even though you seem to have a problem living up to your side of the bargain. Even though I thing a jury of my peers probably wouldn't send me to jail for trying to teach you a lesson the hard way, I'm going to take the high road. I'm going to wish you all the Luck in the world and hope that your karma gives lady luck a push in the right direction.

Photo slide show

Terry has made more photo shows, this one is from their visit last week.

http://www.photoshow.com/watch/Hc2Mt5Dn
and
http://www.photoshow.com/watch/rN3ac9aq

Stuffed Zoo

Poking around the net you find some strange things.

Dorothy and I both like stuffed animals. I have an interest in getting our kids as nice of a big stuffed animal zoo as I can. So when I stumbled onto this site, I thought it would be a great place to use in building up our zoo. It seems like they have everything, even Mosquitoes:

Swaddle Free

All 3 kids are now going to sleep with out their swaddles. It takes us a bit to get Trevor and Charlotte to give up and go to sleep, but Rebecca frequently falls asleep on the floor while playing.

Now if we can get them to sleep consistently through the night, we should all be much better off.

Latest Nurse Visit

Because of the weight "scare" last month we had a nurse visit today to check on the kids weights.

Rebecca = 14lb 8oz
Charlotte = 13lb 8oz
Trevor = 12lb 12oz

She recommended we try a sippy cup with Trevor to try to get him to eat more.
Trevor may also be getting a physical therapist because the nurse thinks he is over compensating with his left leg when we do the practice standing.

Visit to Grandma's House

We took the kids up to see their grandma in Scottsdale last Saturday.

Terry took pictures and HERE are some of them.

Commando Crawling Trevor

A video of Trevor chasing my laser pointer. I couldn't get the first video to look good on YouTube. Enjoy.

The Dentist

So I have a dentist appointment today. You might think that it's nothing worth writing about or that it has nothing to do with my kids, but stay with me.

My issues with dentists really started in Navy boot camp. We got marched off to get a shot one Saturday morning (presumably so the effects of the shot wouldn't interfere with our training). To get the shot, they lined us up in a hallway and handed out the vials our shot would come from so we could warm up the frozen little things. Being boot camp, the did this in alphabetical order which put me very near the end. The guy handing out the vials was also giving the shots, and to save time, he started giving the shots right where he left off with the vials...at the end of the line. The first 10 or so of us to actually get the shot got a butt full of ice. It wasn't pleasant, but I shook it off and headed outside to get back in formation.

I remember getting in place and working on fixing up my uniform. Then, out of nowhere, I was on my back with lots of people over me pushing gauze in my mouth and saying things like "are you ok?" or "squeeze my hand!". Later accounts from people nearby said I had just keeled over like a stiff 2x4 and bounced my face off a concrete step. I had broken one of my front lower teeth and sliced my upper lip in half among other things. I got patched up, 3 stitches and lots of aspirin and they told me to go the the dentist Monday.

Because I didn't have an appointment, I spent a good chunk of that Monday sitting in the hallway of the dentist office looking like I'd been hit with a baseball bat. When I finally got in to see someone, I got the impression I was keeping him from leaving early that day. After a bit of poking and looking at X-Rays, he decided that I was going to need a root canal and away he went. After about 30 minutes of grinding and drilling away, I felt a rather jarring sensation and heard the dentist say "uh oh"....Cause that's what people want to hear.

Turns out the bit broke off in my tooth. He hadn't seen this before and wasn't sure what to do. (I'm sure the dentists at boot camp are well trained but fresh out of school) He spent another 30 minutes fiddling with it and decided I'd have to come back Tuesday so he packed some stuff in it and sent me on my way.

Tuesday, still didn't have an appointment, but he called me in just before lunch. And he brought help. So now I had these 2 dentists and their nurse working on getting the broken bit out of my head. (Is it worth pointing out at this point that they were so focused on getting the bit out that they weren't being very gentle with the rest of my swollen and bruised face?) After about 20 minutes, they got the bit out...yay! But of course, at this point they had to finish the root canal. And because I was in boot camp, they didn't want to do a real crown so they just packed it up and sent me on my way.

Somehow, no one in the Navy wanted to do the crown, so here I am, 20 years later and my Dentist is telling me we have to do it soon or what's left of the tooth could break off. Yay for me.

So, what does this have to do with my kids? Well, I've been losing sleep over this and I've realized I have some issues about this whole thing. I also recently realized that I have to be brave and not pass my fears on to my kids. So I'm bravely off to the dentist today in hopes that, by the time my kids head off for their first appointment, I can honestly say "everything will by ok, nothing will happen."

Father's Day

Well, we had a nice Father's Day. I slept in a little and got up in time to go for a walk with Dorothy and the kids. We spent most of the day just being lazy and playing with the kids even though my list of chores keeps growing.

I got to have a chile dog for dinner ;) and while we were eating, Trevor finally decided to show off some real commando style crawling. Up to this point, the kids have been getting more and more mobile but a lot of that was rolling around and flopping side to side to get where they wanted to go. Trevor saw what we were having for dinner and decided he wanted some so I got a video of his very deliberate crawling to get at what we had. It's probably a good thing he didn't really want the French Fry I offered him.

I'll post the video when I have it ready, I've got to brighten it up a bit first.

A Must Read

From time to time I read what other triplet parents are dealing with so I can get ready. That's the theory anyway.

Well, I stumbled across the blog of a triplet mom and I'm recommending it to anyone with kids. I wish I was as articulate and funny as THE MEANEST MOM.

On a side note, I've come to realize that almost all the blogs I read about triplets are written by the moms. Where are all the dads?

How To Know You Chose The Right Peditrician

We had a nice weekend for the most part. Rebecca is now sleeping without her swaddle. In fact, she goes most of the day without one now. She only gets wrapped up if she has a big meltdown. Trevor and Charlotte still seem to need the swaddle for bed time.

Our big issue this (weekend and last week) was getting the kids to eat. This was caused by the visiting nurse who thinks Trevor (and to a lesser extent, the girls) isn't gaining enough weight. Well, I sent our doctor a note and Dorothy got a call today saying that she isn't worried in the least about our kids. Babies can be very good at self regulating and if they aren't hungry, we shouldn't force the issue. She said that these visiting nurses are more used to seeing the 'problem' babies like the ones born at 24 weeks and can be more alarmist with things.

As long as the kids stay active and happy, we will just stop worrying about it.

Juice!

Sometimes you find that silly thing that just gets a baby into a giggle fit.
Here's Rebecca:

It Takes 3

I was doing dishes late one evening (ok, it was all bottles...as usual) and while doing so, I like to peek in on Dorothy to make sure she doesn't need anything. What I discovered was Dorothy had fallen asleep while trying to keep up with the kids. All 3 are still awake and playing (it's hard to see Rebecca's face, but trust me, she is awake) and their mom just gave up the ghost. This just shows how tiring it can be to keep up with all 3 kids.

Also worth noting is that this is my only picture so far of the kids new room. This is the master bedroom of the house that we have set up for the kids.

I have also put up some of the pictures from our zoo trip HERE. The pictures are unedited at the moment.

Nurse Visit Today

We get visits from a nurse once in a while who tracks their developmental progress. She says we are doing a great job with the kids.

One side affect of the visit is that we get another round of baby weights:
Rebecca = 13lb 10.5oz @ 25.5inches
Charlotte = 12lb 9oz @ 24.5inches
Trevor = 11lb 14oz @24.375inches

This means that all the kids are not gaining the weight they should be. They are going to be skinny like their dad, but we will do what we can. We are going to start giving them more snacks and we are putting faster nipples on their bottles so hopefully they get more down before they decide they are done.

LLoonngg Weekend

It was a long and busy weekend for us. Way back when the kids were born, we decided that they would get the master bedroom. Evey with 3 cribs, a changing table, a dresser, and 2 chairs for adults, there is still enough space for the kids to play on the floor. Because I had 3 days off this weekend, we decided to finally move ourselves out of the babies room and get everything set up.

Saturday:
I moved out our bed, dresser and tv. And I moved in the kids dresser, the 3rd crib, the rocker that Dorothy's boss (Kyria) gave us, and all the toys.

Sunday:
I did some child proofing, but I have more to do on that end. I would also like to find some time to paint and give the room some personality.
I also got some general yard work done. Also got the pumpkins are planted and should be ready for Halloween.

Monday:
We went to the Tucson Zoo. It was mostly a place to meet up with some friends, although I'm not sure how fun it was for them to put up with the triplets. Dorothy and I think that crowds of people (especially kids) are just too overwhelming for them as they have spent the first bit of their lives in relative solitude.
Rebecca was first up. She melted down very shortly after we got into the zoo. Dorothy ended up carrying her for a bit, and when we put her back in the stroller, we dropped the front shade all the way down so she couldn't see so much.
Trevor and Charlotte did fine till it was about time to feed them. They just got fussier and fussier and didn't want to eat. Rebecca also started back up a little bit, but not as bad as before.
When we finally got them out to the car and away from all the people, they were happy again and Dorothy was able to feed them as she rode in the back of the Escape.

Oh, As we were going into the zoo, KGUN 9 had a guy out front who was asking people if the rising gas prices had changed their vacation plans for summer. We talked to him for a bit explaining the the triplets had changed all our plans and it had nothing to do with gas prices. When it aired, the had a nice shot of the triplets in their stroller and Dorothy was talking about how there are so many nice things to do in Arizona.

I have a variety of pictures and video from the zoo trip, but I'm not sure when I'll be able to get them posted. I'm also going to try to get the clip of Dorothy from the news.

Pears and Crawling and Teething...Oh My

Well, it's been a busy week so I don't have any pictures or videos to upload. What I do have is a short list of stuff that's happened over the week:

• The kids have gotten their first taste of pears and avocado. The pears were a big hit, Trevor was eagerly sucking it off the spoon. They didn't seem to mind the avocado that much but they have only had it once so far.
• Rebecca is getting very close to crawling. She has had good head extension for a while now and she just started getting her legs under her. Unfortunatly when she does get her legs under her, she doesn't keep her arms in place and ends up with her face on the mat while her legs push. It's only a matter of time now.
• Trevor is teething, I can feel a couple small bumps at about where his lower canine teeth would be. He is fussier than usual and just had a terrible time staying asleep last night.
• Charlotte has taken to a lot of crying at bed time. As soon as I lay her down in the Kiddopotamus, she flips out and it takes a while to calm her down. Once she is calm, she is fast asleep, so I'm sure it's just her way of fighting sleep.
  

Minimum Size

Rebecca in her new highchair. It seems almost too big for her, and she is the biggest one at the moment. The highchair says "for children who can sit up", but nothing other than that in terms of minimum sizes.
She is playing with her new ducky, best $2 we've spent on a toy. It lights up and quacks 3 different songs. We have a frog as well and they are both big hits.

Here are the rest of the high chair pictures

How to make a Mommy happy

Mother's day was yesterday, so it was appropriate that Dorothy got a treat. With triplets, she wasn't going to get much of a day off but I did what I could. What she did get was a nice big pile of Sushi. Never under estimate the power sushi has over her.

Sweet Potato

We had our 6 month check up yesterday and everyone is doing fine.

Updated weights:
Rebecca = 13 lb 3 oz
Charlotte = 12 lb 1 oz
Trevor = 11 lb 11 oz

Also, last night, we tried feeding them some homemade sweet potato. They all seemed to like it quite a bit. Even Rebecca who still doesn't want to eat the rice cereal.
It looks like the 1 potato I made up will last them about a week at the rate they are eating right now.

Pictures at 6 months old

I just got pictures from Terry. These are from the 3rd and the kids are 1 day over 6 months old.
The album can be found here:

May 3 2008

Their First Taste of Food

The Kids are 6 months old tomorrow and they are progressing quite nicely.

We started giving them a small taste of the rice cereal about a week and a half ago. With being busy at work, I finally got around to editing the video of their first taste test. They didn't do as bad as I thought they would with 1 exception. Watch for Charlotte near the end.

Giggling Charlotte

Finally got some nice video of Charlotte giggling. I've heard Rebecca giggle a little bit recently, but it hasn't been the same kind of giggle fit we've seen with the other 2. One of these days I hope to have all 3 giggling away at the same time and hope to be lucky enough to catch it on video. Meanwhile, enjoy Charlotte:

A sign of good things

The above picture may not look like much of a sign, it is after all, just dinner. But to put into perspective I'll remind you of a few things:

• Dorothy is a mother of triplets. Triplets that are not quite 6 months old and not quite sleeping through the night.
• Dorothy and the 2 girls are just getting over colds.
• Dorothy was a professional pastry chef for a long time and was a bit burnt out when she first 'retired'.

The picture shows that Dorothy now has the energy to not only cook, but fiddle with slightly fancier plating.

That means, as far as signs go:

• Dorothy has gotten over her cold (mostly).
• The kids are sleeping more and more as time progresses.
• Most importantly, she is feeling more like herself after almost a year and a half (counting retiring, the pregnancy and birth of the kids).

Brief Update

Just a short update on the cold situation while I'm working at the International Lightning Detection Conference.

It looks like the girls are clearing up and are basically over the cold. Dorothy is feeling better but still has a bit of a cough.

I'm still hoping that Trevor and I don't get it next.

In other news, the kids have gotten their first tastes of the baby rice cereal. Once I get a chance, I'll edit the video of our first try and get it up on the net.

The Cold moves on

Well, Rebecca seems to be feeling better, but Charlotte and Dorothy have the cold now and Charlotte is dealing with it worse than Rebecca. Dorothy isn't feeling to well either.

So far, Trevor and I have been skipped which will hopefully continue.


I uploaded some pictures taken by Terry on the 12th. I'm still waiting to see at least one picture of Terry and Gurujot holding the kids.

To make things easier for people, I'm going to start including links in the post directly to whatever I've uploaded. Everything can still be reached by the links to the right.

Bath Time

I finally got the bath video to work. It seems like the free editing software that came with the camera can't create a fully compliant AVI file. I had to backtrack, produce it as an mpeg-2 file and convert it to AVI using Streamclip. One of these days I should just buy some good software or get a Mac.

Cold Shoulder

Rebecca has had some coughing lately, but it got noticeably worse over night. No fever or any other symptoms, but we were hounded so much in the NICU about possible respiratory problems that I decided to take her into the hospital. She most likely has a cold and I was told that all we could do is give her some Tylenol if she develops a fever.
A cute note...while there, she fell asleep on my shoulder which was a first for me.

Because we were there, we have a new weight for her : 12 lbs 1 oz.

In other news, in my last post, I mentioned the babies first bath. Today I got a note that Youtube was unable to process the video, but it didn't say why. I'll try again and wait till it's up and working before I post about it again.

Babies first bath

I finally found time to edit and upload a video of the triplets first bath. It's taken while we are in the NICU. I film some of it, and our favorite nurse films some of it.

It's my first attempt at a few things.

1. Some of the videos on Youtube look dark, so I've tried to brighten this one up a bit.
2. My first attempt at splicing several smaller clips together.
3. And I've added a music track as opposed to just using the recorded sound.

Enjoy.

Giggling Trevor

New video on Youtube of Trevor giggling.

I got home yesterday and had an opportunity to get Trevor and Rebecca on the floor for some tummy time and I happened to grab the camera at the same time. I got lucky and Trevor gave us the first real out-loud giggles I've heard from him. Nothing like hearing your child laugh.

Terms and Phrases

I realized last night that my wife and I had started using various terms and phrases as a short hand when talking about the kids. Some of them are kind of cute, so I thought I'd share them.

• squiggle or squigglet - This one started in the NICU and came from us watching the kids trying to move. It wasn't quite a wiggle but was more than an squirm. I'm not sure who, but one of us put the 2 together and ended up with squiggle. I think it refers to the child and not the motion.
• pants - As in making pants or pants face. It's exactly what it sounds like, and I think we adopted it because it was easier that saying "dirty diaper" at 2am. Pants face refers to the look the child gets as they try to make pants.
• squirrel - Ok, so you have your child swaddled in a Kiddopotamus ( or whatever) and they manage to get a hand free just loose enough to be moving around in the swaddle and maybe even poking out on top.... That's a squirrel because somehow it looked like something was running around in the swaddle. Versions of this include:
  
  • "this child has squirrels" - hands are just starting to break free and you can see it running around in the swaddle.
    
  • "squirrel attack" - one or both hands have broken free just enough to let the child get handsy with itself but not completely out of the swaddle.
  • "squirrels stole her binky" - hands have broken out of the swaddle and are stuffed in the childs face, usually resulting in a lost pacifier.
    

That's it for now....Oh, I've changed the way I do headers since the blog keeps track of the publish data anyway. Now the titles should speak to what I'm talking about in that post. - enjoy

How we ended up with a Ford Escape

So I haven't had much time to edit more videos, but I have uploaded more pictures and reorganized some of the other pictures.

Above is a shot of the kids lined up in our Ford Escape. We knew early on that neither of our cars would hold all 3 seats and we knew a new car was on the way. We got the seats (from friends, thank you) first and then spent a month looking for the right car. It seemed like everything we found was wrong. Mini vans didn't have room for the strollers or the dogs. Or if they did, the seating was bad and someone was going to end up trying to lift a baby over the middle seat with car seats in place to get one in the back seat. Bigger stuff like the Durango and Suburban had a different problem. Plenty of space, but we would have to stand on a thin step and lift babies up into the car and it didn't feel safe. The bigger stuff was also outside of our comfortable price range. We found a few cars that would fit the seats, but then the dogs would end up in the trunk.
The mid sized suvs had a weird problem. The car seats would not fit in them side by side. This might sound reasonable till you realize that the smaller Escape fits all 3 just fine. We discovered this as a fluke as I had gotten into the habit of trying the seats in every vehicle I came across. So the seats fit in the Escape very nicely, but not the larger Explorer. There's some genius design work going on there.

Terry's Slideshows

Too busy today for a real post.

I just got a link to a slideshow Terry did of the kids: http://www.photoshow.com/watch/zm5zN9JU

and another one of their first day in the NICU:
http://www.photoshow.com/watch/MR8kX6jV

Enjoy.

5 Months Old

The kids are 5 months old today.

Last night, Trevor and Rebecca both rolled to their sides, just a misplaced elbow away from rolling from their back to their tummy. They both have rolled from tummy to their back recently as well.

Charlotte, however still doesn't like tummy time. Her head drops down after just a few minutes and she hasn't rolled once. We are working with her doing as much tummy time as she will tolerate. We have also been using the Bumbo chair to help her work on her general balance and neck control.

If you haven't seen one, the Bumbo chair is great. It supports the baby down low as if you were holding her and helping her sit up on your own.

Look at those eyes

So my wife noticed that Trevor's left pupil was sometimes a bigger than the right one. A quick email to his doctor told us it was probably ok but she wanted to check him anyway if we had time.

I took him in today, and the doctor said it was probably nothing but we should keep an eye on it. If it changes then she will refer us to a specialist.

Since we were at the hospital, we have a new weight for Trevor = 10 lbs 9.5 oz

Sleeping Arrangements

Quick update about this weekend. The kids are all sleeping more, we are averaging 1 stint of about 6 to 7 hours at night. Of course this means I'm still getting up at 3:30 or 4 am to do a feeding, but it is nice getting a longer stretch of sleep. I still have to get up a couple of times to find a pacifier, but the kids go right back to sleep when they get it. And I've been trying to be the one to get up so my wife gets plenty of sleep during that stretch. She trades by letting me sleep in on weekends.

I've selected the next videos to upload, their first bath while they were in the NICU. I have to splice together 4 or 5 short videos to make one so it will be a day or 2 till it's up.

I also got some video of Charlotte "singing" last night and I'll try to have that up by the end of the week.

NICU Videos

I added 2 more videos to Youtube today, both are from the kids second day in the world. Because of some weirdness with the video clip widget I was using, I took it out and just made a link to all my videos on Youtube over on the right.

Video 1

Video 2

Creating Videos

I finally figured it out and there is now a video up on YouTube of my wife reading to our triplets.

My camera is a JVC Everio, nice camera with a big roomy hard drive and an easy interface. It's only drawback is that it creates all it's video in .mod format. Youtube doesn't recognize this format (in fact, a lot of things don't recognize it) so I had to convert it to an avi file.

I'll skip all the stuff that didn't work and jump right to what does work:

1. I downloaded MPEG Streamclip from http://www.squared5.com which supports all sorts of formats.
   
2. Streamclip needs a codec from Quicktime that you can pay Apple for...or download KL QuickTime Alternative 1.81 for free (I like free). Note: newer versions don't include the MGEG-2 codec you need.
3. If you go with the Quicktime Alternative, you will need to uninstall Quicktime before you install the alternative.
4. Install the software and enjoy. Be sure to read the document, it helped

I may be crushing the videos down a bit too much, but I'll experiment with that when I have more time.

Green Eggs and Ham

My wife read Green Eggs and Ham by Dr. Seuss to the kids last night and I got it on video. I'll upload it to YouTube as soon as I can figure out how to make it smaller. It was nice watching how interested the kids got as she showed each of them the pictures.

Art of the Swaddle

So, it was kind of a long weekend...or at least it felt like it.

As the kids get bigger, we started trying to put them to bed without being in their swaddle. [side bar: I highly recommend the Kiddopotamus SwaddleMe. They made swaddling so much easier than fighting with receiving blankets at 2am.] So far, the boy, Trevor, has been doing great. Even though he started out the smallest, he seems to have the most mature nervous system. Charlotte does ok for a bit, but about 50% of the time she gets very cranky about going to sleep and only calms down when swaddled. Rebecca however, can't seem to do without the swaddle at all (so far).

What makes all this worrisome is the fact that the kids are getting really close to rolling over on their own and we want them to have their hands free if the roll in the middle of the night. Trevor rolled completely over last night, but it was while we were getting ready to feed him so my wife was right there and flipped him back over very quickly.

Stuff about Bottles

Weights as of yesterday:

• Trevor = 10 lbs
• Charlotte = 10 lbs 13 oz
• Rebecca = 11 lbs 10 oz

Got 2 things today.

First, we got some special bottles for Charlotte. We were using Dr. Brown's Natural Flow® Bottles for the kids since they were in the NICU. C recently started randomly refusing both the breast feeding and the bottle and we were worried that she wasn't getting enough to eat. She is also the only one to have moved off the hospital pacifier and really seems to like the MAM pacifier we got her. We got her some Sassy MAM 9-oz. Bottles which have similar nipples to the pacifier. She really seems to like it, and even though she is breast feeding most of the time again, my wife is worried that she will stop soon because it's just easier and faster for her to use the bottle.

A few things about the bottle: 1) the bottle is leaky unless you are really careful about putting it together. 2) The ones we got came with level 2 nipples which means a faster flow. In fact, with warm water or milk in it, you get a solid stream like if you were to poke a hole in a water bottle. 3) The vent in the bottom doesn't seem to do anything. C still has to stop and let air back in through the nipple.

And finally, my wife read in a Parenting magazine that breast milk has antiseptic qualities which made it good for things other than feeding. Trevor has had tiny little white spots on his nose since birth and we were told they were basically newborn acne. My wife has been putting some breast milk on his nose for a few days and his nose has cleared up.

First Post

Just starting this blog. I'll be posting stuff about my current life which includes work, my marriage to my wonderful wife and our latest challenge --- our triplets.

Just briefly, My wife and I were married on January 23 2007. In April we found out she was pregnant. Because she is listed as "high risk", we got a sonogram at 6 weeks from her last period and that's when we found out about the triplets.

We had 2 girls (Rebecca and Charlotte) and a boy (Trevor) on November 2, 2007. They were carried by their mom for 34 weeks. Rebecca and Charlotte spent 21 days in the NICU and came home Thanksgiving day. Trevor stayed a few more days till the next monday.
All 3 have been healthy and have not needed medical intervention, they just started out really small.

Birth Weights:
Rebecca = 3lbs, 10 oz
Charlotte = 3lbs, 13 oz
Trevor = 2lbs, 9 oz